


Poolside

by bluestargirl6 (pressdbtwnpages)



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-15
Updated: 2005-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:44:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pressdbtwnpages/pseuds/bluestargirl6
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duncan gets nostalgic for the way things used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poolside

**Author's Note:**

> Set pre-series, but spoilers for all of Season 1. Because I am talented like that.

Duncan remembers swimming.

Granted he has a pool in his backyard, but it is considered in poor taste to use it. Crime scenes are not to be used for entertainment purposes, his mother's words.

Duncan can see the pool from his bedroom. He kept the shades down for months. And then he opened them and avoided looking out. After awhile, after Cuba, it had seemed cowardly to be afraid of a damn pool, so Duncan looked. He looked and he looked and if he looked hard enough he could still see Lilly laying there.

But since Aaron's arrest, finding Lilly isn't Duncan's only poolside memory.

The Kane's used to be quite over-protective. Or, maybe it wasn't that so much as that the Echolls were downright negligent. Whatever the reason, Veronica and Logan spent a lot of time hanging out by the pool with he and Lilly.

It was better that way. Because Veronica was there, and she mellowed Lilly out. Even when she was innocent Veronica was brave, braver than Duncan anyway. Brave enough to face down Lilly and tell her to get out of the tree right NOW.

In Duncan's memory, Veronica stomps her foot, hands on hips and furious-looking, even in a sparkly pink one-piece swimsuit that by then was much too juvenile.

Logan, if Duncan recalls correctly, was sprawled in a chair eating an apple and looking infinitely bored. He always had liked playing the disaffected youth. It's ironic that Logan is so affected.

Duncan tried calling his friend after Aaron had been arrested. Logan hadn't picked up for two days. Then he had and was drunk. Then he'd been a dick and Duncan had hung up on him. Logan's in Tahiti now, drinking rum and flirting with girls in bikinis. This is a fact, or as close to fact as Logan gets, scrawling messages on international postcards.

Veronica didn't get one. Duncan asked. Veronica's eyebrows had furrowed and her lips had puckered and for a moment she had reminded Duncan of her mom.  
That's how he knows that whatever Veronica and Logan had was serious. Because Veronica's poker face slipped faster than Logan's grip on sobriety.

Lilly dangled off the end of a tree branch. Duncan was pretty sure she couldn't jump into the water from there, and even more certain that she would try.

"Lilly, don't," Veronica had pleaded and Duncan remembers trying not to notice the cuteness of her pout.

Lilly had rolled her eyes.

"Logannnnn," Veronica had whined coaxingly. "Doooooooo something."

In retrospect Duncan remembers Logan and Veronica always using each other as allies in fights. It made sense because significant other plus best friend? Pretty much an unstoppable way of keeping you in line. But now Duncan wonders if they'd always been secretly in love.

The thought doesn't bother him as much as he thinks it should. Maybe it's the anti-depressants.

"Lilly you're going to fall." Logan stated. "And then you will break something. And then you will have to wear a cast back to school."

"And it will be ugly." Veronica picked up the thread. "And hot and itchy. And people will call you stumpy."

Lilly had burst out laughing at that. "You really want me to come down?"

"Yes," Veronica, Logan and Duncan had choroused.

"Oh-kay!" Lilly had hopped from the tree in an instant. "Let's go swimming!"

They had all followed, even disaffected Logan had put down his apple in favor of cannon-balling into the pool.

Lilly had been annoyed by Logan's antics, Veronica had been amused. Veronica had always been amused by Logan. Duncan was pretty sure Lilly took it as naivety; he always had, innocent Veronica not seeing the harm in Logan. But it's possible that Veronica just understood him better, was relieved when Logan showed off instead of sulking.

Duncan wonders what would have happened if Lilly had lived. If Lilly hadn't been screwing Logan's dad. Would Logan and Veronica have gotten together? Where would that have left Lilly? Left him? If Duncan hadn't thought Veronica was his sister, where would they be?

Probably not in Tahiti, a musty office, a mansion, and hell, respectively.


End file.
